


and pause

by grainjew



Category: Katekyou Hitman Reborn!
Genre: Friendship, Gen, and chrome a relationship w someone who is just... nice, i love them. let them be friends for real ok., it gives tsuna a breath of fresh air from all the absurdity, look guys. i just need to them to be friends, set after the varia arc and before the future arc, they can be soft-spoken and quiet together
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-05-22
Updated: 2018-05-22
Packaged: 2019-05-10 01:30:12
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,402
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/14727407
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/grainjew/pseuds/grainjew
Summary: Chrome and Tsuna, and the concept of friendship.“Oh,” said Chrome, clearly confused. And then she leaned towards him and added quietly, in an almost-whisper like she was asking for the secret to the universe, “How do you become friends, then?”“Um.” Tsuna scratched behind his head and avoided her gaze, dark like charcoal or thick heavy fog. “I'm not sure? I mean I didn't have friends till Gokudera and Yamamoto and everyone and they just kinda… happened. So I guess I'm not much help, sorry. Maybe you could ask Kyoko? I think she knows how to make friends, you could go to the cake shop together!"





	and pause

**Author's Note:**

  * For [kuzujuk](https://archiveofourown.org/users/kuzujuk/gifts).



> im blaming this on tumblr user kuttithevangu even though it isnt terribly kuzu's fault at all, thank u for prodding me into reading about these children my friend

It was late afternoon, almost sunset, the sky populated by only a few clouds that skittered towards the horizon as he looked up, when Tsuna ran into Chrome. Or maybe Chrome ran into him.

He was taking a walk through some of the more unfamiliar areas of his neighborhood, eyeing the dogs and cats and toddlers spilling out onto the street or being gathered up back inside. It was an attempt to escape from the pre-dinner chaos that built up every night in his mom's house, a breath of fresh air that didn't smell faintly of gunpowder.

And the chaos was even worse than usual today, because Gokudera had come by on the pretext of helping Yamamoto and Tsuna with their math homework, and then Kyoko and Haru walked in to spend some time with Bianchi and brought Ryohei along somehow, and was that Hibari he saw on patrol, lingering outside the window for a moment before moving on? No, _that_ was entirely his rapidly-worsening paranoia, and he had made up his mind to fervently ignore every indication otherwise.

Still, even without Hibari, or _because_ there was no Hibari, the house was crowded. A good kind of crowded, maybe, because it was obvious no matter what pretext they used that his friends didn’t want to let him out of their sight, not after they all nearly died fighting the Varia all for the sake of some stupid rings, which left him feeling so warm and safe and loved that he almost forgave Reborn for bringing the mafia into his life. He shared the sentiment, really, and kept looking at them over and over just to reassure himself that they were whole and real and alive. Especially Gokudera.

But. He couldn’t forgive Reborn for the mafia, for putting his friends in danger, and having all these people and their yelling and grenades and absurdity got to be as much stifling and headache-inducing as it was comforting, eventually.

Hence, his walk.

When he came upon Chrome, he didn't even see her at first. She seemed too out-of-place and unreal in the soft suburban sunlight, all her dark colors and the eyepatch like something out of movie, and he almost walked right by her except that she said, “Boss.”

“Oh! Chrome!” he said back, stumbling backwards a step and smiling apologetically. He waved his hands in a way that he hoped looked more disarming than panicked. “I didn't see you there!”

“It’s okay,” reassured Chrome, except her voice sounded like she didn't exactly know how to do that. “I am difficult to notice.”

“Um, alright, if you say so,” said Tsuna.

Chrome didn't answer him, and Tsuna decided that keeping up a conversation with Chrome was like pulling teeth: difficult, painful, and really, really necessary.

He didn't know anything about her, he was realizing. And it wasn't the sort of not knowing that he'd had with Gokudera at first, when Gokudera had shown up and pledged loyalty without so much as a by-your-leave and then settled into Tsuna's life, all explosive.

Except for maybe, it was. Chrome showed up and risked her life for him in the ring battles (and wasn't _that_ a terrifying thought, another person he didn't even know risking her life for him), only afterwards, instead of clinging, she faded back out until Tsuna wasn't sure he hadn't dreamed her up. A true Mist Guardian, Reborn would probably comment. Tsuna didn't like the fact that he could now imagine Reborn's voice in his head.

“Um, there's a bench a few blocks that way,” he said, before he could process the words coming out of his mouth. Damn Reborn, making him more impulsive when all he wanted to do was hide from the awkwardness. But. Chrome was willing to die for him. The least he could do was be her friend first. “We could go sit there?”

“Okay,” she said. Tsuna couldn't pick up any enthusiasm from her, or any disagreement, so he led the way and she slipped behind him, silent and stoic as a shadow.

The walk was uneventful, and Tsuna felt more than saw a viscous cloud of awkwardness settle around them, stifling until he was almost relieved to spot the bench.

“Uh, Chrome,” he said, as they sat down. He had spent the whole walk over trying to figure out how to start a conversation with her and still hadn't quite puzzled it out.

“Boss?”

He winced, and made an aborted motion with his hand. “Look, I dunno what Reborn told you, or my dad I guess, but I don't want to be anyone's boss. At least… Especially not without being friends, first.”

“Oh,” said Chrome, clearly confused. And then she leaned towards him and added quietly, in an almost-whisper like she was asking for the secret to the universe, “How do you become friends, then?”

“Um.” Tsuna scratched behind his head and avoided her gaze, dark like charcoal or thick heavy fog. “I'm not sure? I mean I didn't have friends till Gokudera and Yamamoto and everyone and they just kinda… happened. So I guess I'm not much help, sorry. Maybe you could ask Kyoko? I think she knows how to make friends, you could go to the cake shop together!”

“I will ask her,” said Chrome, and nodded sharply like she had been assigned a mission. Which wasn’t his intention. At all. Dammit. “Although, I believe that that would be becoming friends with her, no? And not with you.” Her voice was soft, apprehensive, like she didn’t know whether or not she was crossing a line.

“Huh, I guess not,” said Tsuna. He moved a hand to pat her on the arm for some kind of comfort and then reconsidered, put it back in his lap and tried to organize his thoughts into something cohesive.

It’s not that he was scared of Chrome— the opposite really, for all that she could summon Mukuro who probably still wanted to kill him or maybe possess him, and even without Mukuro she could dazzle him with an illusion or just stab him with that trident thing she had, which on the few occasions he’d seen it had looked alarmingly sharp. He knew she was dangerous: that much was obvious. But he also knew, even though trusting the thrum of Intuition in the back of his mind was new and its own kind of terrifying, that she was _lonely_.

Lonely as he had been, or maybe more, lonely as Gokudera had been, as I-Pin and Lambo and Fuuta had been, before they all came into his house and settled into his life and he hated Reborn’s idea of Family but they were _family_ now and if Chrome wanted to come join them for dinner then she would be more than welcome at his mother’s table. But. He didn’t know how to tell her that, in the face of all her walls and walls of silence, so instead he said:

“It’s nice, with you. Quiet, for once.”

Her expression remained neutral, but he thought he could see a faint smile color her face. “I’m glad, Boss.”

He sighed at the name, but decided to leave it to deal with later. “I think that, maybe, we're already friends? I mean,” he backtracked, “not that I want to be presumptuous or anything! It's just that this is nice, I think, the whole thing where I can be around you and we can talk without there being explosions. Or gunshots. Or people wanting to kill us. Or whatever.”

Her face brightened noticeably this time, and before he could react she leaned in and kissed him on the cheek.

Tsuna, quite reasonably because unlike last time she did that this wasn’t a life-or-death situation, fell off the bench and ended up on the ground.

For some reason, he burst out laughing. Maybe because of the completely bewildered expression on Chrome’s face, but then after a few seconds of hesitation she was laughing too, a soft kind of laughter that bubbled up and flew into the sky. Not at him, but with him. Tsuna decided that falling off the bench wasn’t so bad after all.

Eventually, their laughter faded into winded giggles and she helped him back up and they sat, and talked, and with the awkwardness past and the sky colored in sunset, shaded by the first night mists, Tsuna found that he could, finally, relax.

**Author's Note:**

> hmu on tumblr or twitter @grainjew if you want to chat about FRIENDSHIP (or other things i guess)


End file.
